Pedicab Philosophers

Becak drivers in Yogyakarta face long days in the sun with little pay. How do they keep their spirits up? Trish Anderton finds it's all a matter of attitude.

Sukirman has been a pedicab driver for at least 20 years. He himself has lost count. Every week he takes the bus to Yogya from a nearby village. He stays on the street for two or three days, earning perhaps Rp 60,000 to Rp 90,000 in all.

"When I have enough to support my family, I go home," he says, trolling for passengers one morning on busy Jl. Malioboro. "I sleep in the becak."

Like his fellow becakers, Sukirman eagerly solicits passengers, joining in the shouts of "Mau ke mana?" ("Where are you going?") and "Becak, becak!" But he doesn't seem anxious and stressed-out. His creased, tanned face readily breaks into a smile, and he doesn't mind taking a few minutes to chat with a reporter. Sukirman insists he doesn't compete with other drivers or try to undercut them.

He isn't envious, he says, even if he sits idle all day while someone else lands a big customer.

"Everyone has their own fate, really," he explains. "So if someone gets something, that's his gain, and if he doesn't, that's just his luck."

Kliwon, who has been a pedicab driver for some 40 years, agrees. "Because we’re friends, we try to make a living together," he explains at his outpost near the Lempuyangan train station, several blocks away.

In his white polo shirt, pants and sunglasses, Kliwon looks like a retiree heading off to golf the back nine.  He projects an innate sense of dignity. Only his rubber sandals, and the gnarled toes that peek out of them, belie a life of hard labor.

"Let my friend get his reward," Kliwon elaborates. "Hopefully I’ll get mine later."

This laid-back attitude intrigued Jesuit priest Romo (Father) Sindhunata, even when he was a child. The drivers he knew seemed "always happy" he recalls at Yogya's Santo Ignatius College, "always thankful, and always able to see life positively. I was surprised."

Curious, Sindhunata spent some time hanging out with Kliwon and other drivers, talking with them about their lives. The resulting book, Waton Urip (Javanese for "staying alive") was issued by Nineart Publishing in 2005.

The central idea drivers express in Waton Urip is that if you're envious, you won't get rejeki, the Javanese word meaning livelihood or reward.

"For example if a friend has already gotten a ride and I haven’t, and I go 'Aagh, why haven’t I gotten anything yet?!', it won’t come," Sindhunata explains. "But if I say, 'Oh, later it will come', it will."

The idea that the envious do not get rewarded may sound like mere superstition. But on further contemplation, a subtler meaning emerges: If you're greedy, you cannot appreciate what you have.

"If a person is envious, the rejeki he gets doesn't have any meaning because it seems like it's not enough," says Sindhunata. "So it’s true to say that not being envious is its own reward."

Some drivers express these ideas through the becak themselves. Stroll around Yogya and you'll see pedicabs sporting the words rejeki or waton urip; others say anugerah (gift of God) or the charmingly succinct puas (satisfied). Some drivers paint their vehicles with the names of the wives or children they're laboring to support.

Becak drivers may share a philosophy, but that does not make them all saints, of course. No doubt there are as many liars and criminals in their number as among the general population; perhaps even as many as there are among politicians. Furthermore, the drivers surely benefit from a patient spirit and a sense of community. When one goes hungry, others buy him a meal. During the long hours of waiting, they chat or play chess together.

It's worth pondering, though, whether this anti-greed philosophy benefits the becak drivers in a larger sense. After all, desire is a key force for change. Perhaps if the drivers were angrier, they would get together to demand better working conditions, a more responsive government or a different form of government altogether.

That question has no simple answer. Political uprisings are a risky business. They may end up victimizing those they were meant to help, or they may lead to broken promises and bitterness. There are other, subtler dangers too, Sindhunata argues.

"One problem with the cry for freedom, the political cry, is where will it take us?" he says. "If the alternative is to become greedy, envious, to feel you never have enough, then what is it for?

"There is solidarity, there's happiness, there's helping each other out," he concludes.  "And that must not disappear if we change to some idea of liberation philosophy or what have you. And that's not easy."

The priest and journalist also takes issue with the notion that becak drivers merely accept their lot in life. "We must be careful about saying that they accept fate. They fight with fate every day.

"Sometimes when I see them, I can't believe they are so strong, sleeping in the becak, drying out their clothes first thing in the morning, going back to work," he says. "Can one call people like that lazy? Can one say they surrender to fate?”

"No! They're working!"

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